GLIMPSES of Suprapto Suryodarmo’s Amerta Movement

in Practice

Short extracts from the book: Embodied Lives

Edited by: Katya Bloom, Margit Galanter and Sandra Reeve

These extracts have been chosen to give an idea of the range and scope of the book Embodied Lives. Though the extracts are not here attributed to their authors, Prapto’s words appear in “italics and double inverted commas”. Extracts retain the spelling and grammar of the original (whether British, American or international English).

Published by Triarchy Press www.triarchypress.net

ISBN: 978-1-909470-32-3

© Triarchy Press 2018

For more details of Embodied Lives, or to order a copy, visit:

www.triarchypress.net/embodiedlives

In North America please order from Contact Quarterly:

http://bit.ly/embodiedlives

or from amazon.com:

http://bit.ly/embodied-lives

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Introduction

The Javanese movement artist and teacher, Suprapto Suryodarmo (Prapto), and his Amerta Movement practice have had widespread influence on people from many cultures and professional backgrounds.

The common denominator for all of us who have had the good fortune to work with Prapto is the exploration of our own movement as a way of deepening our connection to ourselves, to each other and, at the same time, to our world. Amerta Movement may be seen as cultivating an embodied interdisciplinary approach to life through the practice of movement as a skilled art.

Time to Harvest

The Balinese word, biukukung, is the name for the ritual offering made by farmers when the rice stalks are full of grain and bowing over, ready to be harvested. The expression is also seen as a metaphor for life - as we grow older and fill with wisdom, we share what we have learned from our many years of experience. Biukukung is sometimes translated as blossoming.

The original book – Embodied Lives – from which these extracts are taken, was a response to the feeling that the time was ripe for a harvest of mature reflections blossoming from some of those who have integrated the Amerta practice into their work/lives over time. We sent a call to all the movement dialoguers (people who have an experienced practice of Amerta and share the work) in the worldwide ‘circulation’ of Amerta Movement. We received thirty responses from people in fourteen countries. Each of the writers has made the work their own, each with different questions to investigate. As well as illustrating the variety of ways Amerta

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Movement has been applied, Embodied Lives also uncovered the common ground we share – the ‘unity in diversity’ – a defining principle of the practice.

Glimpses was originally created in English as an online booklet offering thematic highlights and extracts from Embodied Lives. These ‘glimpses’ were chosen to give an idea of the range and scope of the original text and in no way replace the depth and breadth of the authors’ contributions to the original book. However, as it offers a short and concise flavour of some of the areas of interest we have decided to translate Glimpses into Bahasa Indonesia.

The Practice

The practice of Amerta Movement is different from most other traditional movement arts, like Tai Chi or Yoga, or somatic practices, like the Feldenkrais Method or Alexander Technique, because Amerta has no set form, no patterns and no series of movements. There is nothing to follow except one’s own experience on all levels, but especially that of the sensory-motoric – our bodies, on the Earth, and responsive to gravity — rather than a movement format or technique, Amerta supports people to move with sensitivity to the atmosphere. We ‘receive our condition’, and our place in the environment, our connection inward and outward simultaneously. From this we follow the moment-by-moment decisions of our beings in time and space, as we follow our intention to deepen our embodied awareness of the ever-changing here and now. Our bodies listen and speak, receive and respond, choose and allow, as we encounter the border between known and unknown. With an attitude of attentive play, we discover meaning in relation.

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Amerta Movement seems to reach beyond ‘movement meditation’ or ‘dance’ into a movement world that is uniquely sensitizing and integrative. Through movement, the practitioner interacts with the environment and self, and is also in communication with the personalities and cultural heritage of fellow movers. So, in these ways Amerta Movement provides a forum for cultural, artistic, atmospheric, and human interaction. This breadth of the practice affects the quality of experience in the movement, itself, as well as perceptions of the world in which we live.

For most of our lives, after early childhood, our movement settles into and replicates a limited vocabulary of patterns, in which we use our bodies as tools to carry out our wishes and needs. In Amerta Movement, we regain a sense of our bodies as responsive, sensing organisms, and our vocabulary develops from that very different starting place. When we allow our bodies to ‘speak’ or express from that place, with ordinary, daily life movements and their variations – such as lying, rolling, crawling, sitting, walking, jumping – what arises is an enlivening experience, which Prapto calls ‘blossoming’. And the image of the common field of practice, when a group moves together, is that of a garden, where each being is a unique expression of life, and where the micro and the macro levels of one’s experience can connect. Amerta offers the field to experience the nuances of movement in the shared space and place.

The nature of the practice is that we slow things down, relaxing both body and mind. With roots in Vipassana (mindfulness) meditation, daily life movement, non-stylised movement and a Javanese meditation form called Sumarah, the practice helps us pay attention, open our senses, to receive what is present, and crucially, to recognize that the present is always changing. The Buddhist principle of non-attachment is central to the Amerta practice, though we are more actively

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involved in witnessing what comes and goes than we would be in traditional meditation. In this way we discover different points of view, different ways of moving, listening and speaking with our bodies, in a creative moment-by-moment dialogue with ourselves, with others and with our surroundings. A relationship with nature, environment and culture are inherent within the practice; and a relationship with the past also comes alive as part of the present. Prapto is skilled at creating an atmosphere of openness and dialogue, so that each participant can be seen, and recognize their own unique qualities. We have always been asked to interpret his work through our own experience, and to learn, not only from Prapto, but also from each other. He has insisted that he studies from each of us, as much as we study with him.

The stated aim is ‘sharing movement’. This approach has given value to each person, as it instils a sense of responsibility. This originates, in part, from giving value to the changing body in a changing environment. The emphasis on change means that even the practice itself isn’t fixed. We are part of a live, embodied, evolving community of practice.

What follows are glimpses of the perspectives of people who have extended experience with Amerta. Through their own practising over time in daily life, they have developed their respective expressions of movement and understandings of Amerta, — blossoming in the garden of life.

May this little book continue to expand the growing dialogue through the many languages, cultures, and movements it encounters.

Katya Bloom, Margit Galanter and Sandra Reeve

December 2017

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Look near

I hold the bamboo and the bamboo holds me; looking through the window, I remember the first feedback I got from Prapto, on my first visit to Java in 1987: “look near”.

It was like zooming with my eyes from far to near, to myself. While zooming I become aware of the space and sensing the space made me breathe. I touched the way to be connected with space and, through the space, with the far and near.

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Always moving

In Amerta Movement, form and structure are in continuous process of change. Movement here could start from anywhere: a physical area, a feeling or an idea, and develop from either a source of stillness or movement. Listening to, and following, the inner guidance of the present condition is encouraged; a condition that is always moving with the awareness of direct experience.

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Family

Prapto asked us to pick a long piece of grass and move with it in a field where the grass was growing. He asked us to watch the way the grass moved in the wind and to move with the grass. This practice really inspired me. Focusing on the grass and its beauty softens and releases my need to stand out and be special. Without taking anything away it offers another way of being. One where my needs aren’t distinct and I am one of many, all of which are blessed. As a family we are deeply connected and interdependent. We affect each other and impact on each other. We are one entity and I give for the simple pleasure of giving and being together and I receive because I am here.

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Changing patterns

I’ve come to recognise that our infant needs are never fully overcome – they reside at the core of our beings. However, we can strengthen our capacities to transform them. Like infants, we can practice receiving the sensation of our bodies and experiencing the space and the others, all on what Prapto once called the “carpet of time”, while using our organisational skills, to make in-formed decisions that keep us present and safe.

Prapto’s work greatly supported my under-standing that although our earliest relationships may set certain patterns in motion, we can alter their course through movement practice. We can become more ‘organic organisers’, more ‘organised organisms’ – bringing the instinctive and infant qualities together with our more awakened and developed adult choices and plans. In this way, we can develop greater empathy and common ground with others, and more fully recognise ourselves as part of the ‘garden’ of all life.

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Forgetting

“In our need ‘to get’, we forget ourselves. How can we understand and create from what we have already, how can we find our point of growing from what we have already?”

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Autistic gardening

Prapto began to talk with remarkable yet practical insight about my world of being with people on the autistic spectrum. He was able see “where I was coming from”. He explained how I needed to understand the people I was working with and how I could stimulate growth for them rather than fixing, pacifying or trying to educate them in ways they weren’t ready for.

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What is movement?

Each person’s movement is who they are. It isn’t a vehicle to carry who they are or a representation of who they are.

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So much happens

The joy of movement, in my experience, is that bodily impressions and expressions can be so multilayered, so vectored and textured: lateral, horizontal, vertical, sagittal, inner, outer, cyclical. In one moment so much happens. The strata of an embodied situation and the paradoxes or conflicting interests within that situation or within myself can be received and acknowledged in such a short space of time, each overlaying the other. Acceptance and transformation take longer!

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Evenly suspended attention

In my movement work, I do not have a specific outcome or result in mind; rather I provide a space where it is possible to sense one’s own condition, one’s contact to oneself and to the world. My working attitude has a strong parallel to ‘evenly suspended attention’ as used in psychoanalysis. I maintain this ‘evenly suspended attention’ not only in the sense of feeling but also with my own psychosomatic body.

Just as the analyst goes on the journey with the patient, exploring his own feelings, fantasies and thoughts, so I go into movement together with the patient without knowing how we will move, or what the theme will be.

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Unity

I used to be utterly convinced in my mind and in my feeling that living in town was the very best thing for me – the bigger the urban jungle and chaos the better. Nothing else was worthwhile. That was my home, the place I identified with. Now I live in the jungle of nature. It is not that I jumped from there to here in one step. There was quite a long path in between, where I had not really let go of the one and had not really landed in the other. But now after just a few years… I can feel nature entering my cells and my cells changing into tentacles that are moving deep into the green surroundings and my body dissolving and widening into the infinite space. This is like my most precious jewel. If ever I felt something holy from the deepest part of my heart then it is this feeling of unity.

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Wanting more

At first, it is hard for me to trust the moving that Prapto asks of us. “Please come”, he says, which means come here and start moving. I don’t mean that it’s hard to begin just moving around. It’s not! It’s just that I’ve been trained to want something more, to look for something. Prapto asks me to stop looking for something else, to stop leaving the dance. As I drift from words to workshops – alighting, flitting, and re-membering – I am slowly learning to trust those invisible currents that the butterfly calls home, the land of the wind.

I could say something about the way the movement feels. On watching it, it feels silvery, like a thread, like the weaving of a web, a quicksilver web. In dancing, it feels like entering a slipstream of movement that is always almost right here, being woven just beyond normal, if I could only catch it. Then I do. I find myself moving and I forget that I ever needed something more.

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Being among time

I am not on a neat timeline stretching behind and before me, but ‘among’ time. In the layered strata of an archaeological section, all the times are co-present, and when I scrape across the section with my trowel I am encountering centuries or millennia with each stroke. In the landscape too, features of different ages are simultaneously present underfoot and around me. Past, present and future are not located elsewhere, in separate places, but co-exist and intermingle. There is a feeling of being suspended in time, moving to and fro between the past represented by the archaeological remains, the process of uncovering them in the present, and the story that I am creating out of this material, unfolding into the future.

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Focusing

Focusing in general is not the principal attitude in Java. With focusing you exclude. You create a central point, pushing aside all else that seems unrelated. You decide what is right and necessary for your chosen focus and what is not. Javanese culture does not function this way, nor does the individual living in it. Focusing creates boundaries, but in the Javanese attitude it is not by exclusion that boundaries get established.

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Changing habits 1

In the unfoldment in movement of what appears from moment to moment, there is continual contact with the inner condition and with what is being perceived, staying with what unfolds, gradually lessening the sense of identification and attachment that may arise. With this approach I have found that ingrained habits are often unravelled and, though they may resurface again and again, their potency lessens in correlation with a decrease in the sense of identification with them. I have also observed this in clients, especially when a strong memory would arise that was connected with a traumatic experience. They have found the movement to be a supportive and safe vehicle for embodying and moving through their condition. So when a memory arose, it would be met with a sense of allowing, in the movement of it, staying present with the feeling of it, with less resistance or clinging.

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Changing habits 2

Amerta Movement offers simple ways that we can practise as we go about our daily life. I still struggle with most of these most days. But I do get better with practice. I have learnt to slow down, listen and give others time and space. I have become quieter within and grown in love and enjoyment of the richness of everyday life. Our family ties and the knowledge that we are together for the long haul provide a kitchen where we can cook each other’s souls. Prapto talks about the polishing that happens as we rub up against each other. As we live and share together we can rub old habits away and make each other shine.

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Find your position

The simple phrase “find your position” was one that I heard Prapto use many times in his workshops that seemed to represent a rich, multi-layered perspective on practice which includes this sense of centeredness or inner connection. By ‘finding our position’ we stay grounded within ourselves, while we remain aware of and receptive to our surroundings – and open to the creative possibility of the moment.

As I have found to be true in both the practice of Amerta Movement as well as in my own life, two aspects are key to ‘finding my position’: this type of embodied, centred presence, and the development of a non-judgemental inner witness, which together allow me to arrive more fully in the moment. Further, when I enter the present with openness, I also expand my perceptions.

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Finding proportion

One part of our movement practice is what Prapto calls “finding proportion”: using the entirety of the body to receive and embody whatever arises in consciousness. This includes all the thoughts, fears, emotions, and perceptions of both the outer and the inner worlds, really everything that we experience. We stay present in our bodies, sometimes expressing, sometimes just listening; and through this, we develop the priceless ability to engage with, in productive ways, whatever presents itself. We’re less overwhelmed by all the inputs, promptings, emotions, and demons that dwell in our store-box. And this, in turn, helps reduce the sense – and feeling – that we are victims of our own mind.

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Learning from the environment 1

The environment itself becomes the teacher with different elements eliciting different experiences and movement responses. Moving among trees may offer a clearer kinaesthetic understanding of one’s verticality. Lying in tussocky grass cradled by the contours of the earth can engender a profound experience of being held and of surrender. Working in tidal environments and in different weathers offers an experience of change mirroring the changes in our interior landscape and our personal weather. Moving on the coast where I live, the constant movement of the sea combined with the clear form of the rocks supports the ability to move with clarity and fluidity – challenging us to embody both our strength and our responsiveness. The intricate microcosm of rock-pools viewed at eye level coupled with the grandeur of the cliffs offers a perspective of our place in the interconnected web of life.

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Learning from the environment 2

When I trudge up the hillside or haul a bucket of excavated soil, when I bow or sing, or sweep the ground with a handful of grass, or walk along an old pilgrims’ path, I may well be following earlier footsteps, echoing previous activities and stirring similar areas of the autonomic nervous system with its deep layers of memory and experience. And although there is no way of proving this to be so, if I heed my own intentions and the environment around me, maintaining my connection with everyday life in steering between sentimental wishful thinking and cynical detachment, then I can deepen my experience and understanding of my relationship with a place and with its communities both past and present.

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Learning from the environment 3

For me, receiving starts with stopping. If I stop ‘doing’, whether that’s thinking or sensing or attending to something, and let myself be quiet, I can begin to receive myself. I might notice a tension in my shoulders or behind my eyes or an emotion; but I settle, feel my feet touching the floor, and I wait. Gradually I find that I have a softer and quieter feeling of empty receptiveness and connection. My focus broadens and I am aware of other sounds such as the movement of trees in the wind outside, the quality of the light or the texture of the carpet. I become aware of what I am already receiving and am in connection with. I am not alone, I am part of this place and it bears witness to me as I am its witness.

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Presence 1

Our physical presence, being rooted and grounded in the body, is our base, our home. The body is our instrument, this is where it happens, here we speak – nonverbally – here we receive the nonverbal. It is important to get to know and be present in the body otherwise there is no : body, and we are lost, in the world of fine energy, vibrations and resonances…

When we get behind/beyond the judgements, explanations, reasonings, smart thoughts (of the prefrontal brain) and have the courage to feel (the limbic brain), acknowledge the instincts (brain stem), and allow this experience to just be and give time for release to happen, we come into the present and closer to ourselves.

The release seems to drop into every cell, we breathe, cry sometimes or laugh; we have space; a profound relaxation happens as well as a deep transformative process.

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Presence 2

All that appears in our field of experience as human beings – inner and outer – emerges within our soul or individual consciousness as an imprint, and as Martin Buber’s inner Erregungsbild (excitement-picture), a “dynamic, stirring image (...) streaming through” the body. These inner excitement-pictures will be noticeable to a sensitive person and can be recognised, felt, and sensed from within. It is my experience that the more an actor becomes conscious of these imprints, the more visible they will be, radiating out to an audience and by that means will become present. This is a phenomenon that often amazes students, when they recognise what effect it has when they turn toward their immediate bodily experience on stage. They stop being concerned about the effect of their ‘playing’ and instead become increasingly able to concentrate and focus their attention on the activity, text, partner, etc.

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Presence 3

Everybody has seen dance or martial arts. Recalling those skills immediately shapes and develops our internal criteria of how movement should be and what it should look like. These ideas may initially prevent us from getting involved with our own impulse towards movement and with following that as it really is. But that very impulse, when it is realised with honesty and with an acceptance of the limits of its own potential, creates beauty, which deeply touches the heart of whoever is there. This is a beauty beyond form, which nevertheless needs embodied expression to manifest itself. If someone in their movement sequence reaches this quality of being for just one moment, the entire room is changed. It is like a miracle, like something magical; all those present are suddenly very awake, alert and involved.

This law of the effect of truth and presence applies not only in the context of movement practice; it is visible in every form of human expression: architecture, graphic and product design and, of course, in daily life.

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Making sound

In my meditation practice, sometimes I feel less connected with my body or my mind becomes over-active. Often, unseen and unfelt emotions churn beneath this restless mind. At these times, I make vocal sounds to allow me to connect with my inner atmosphere. They can be any sounds at all – gurgling, whining, whispering, humming – or it can just be an out-breath and a well-placed sigh. There’s no need to sing a song or construct a melody; each out-breath brings its own music, and I simply let these songs come into being. This free issuing of sound prevents my mind from describing or categorising my state; I don’t fix myself as being sad, angry, happy, or anything else, and so stay open to the further free expression of my soul. Each breath is a new experience and a new allowing, each capable of opening new windows. The ‘autopilot’ button has not been pressed.

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Stagnation and expression

In my movement practice I noticed that there was a stream of cultivating awareness through many wonderful techniques: line and point, zooming, naming, three dimensions, body has volume, finding proportion… After being involved in these practices for some time, they often started to feel stale; as if my soul, my emotions had no being; a sort of stagnation of consciousness itself which can happen if we try to hold ourselves too tightly in being aware. Answering my question about this Prapto said: “It is very difficult to teach awareness without giving stagnation.”

My impression is that Prapto invites expression when he feels somebody or the general atmosphere is starting to stagnate. He might say “find your mouth of movement” or “all your body has face”. Often the music he is making supports us in staying out of stagnation within the flow of embodied consciousness.

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The space between the wind

Whether viewed intimately and informally on an iPhone, or publicly in a cinema, film’s intimate disclosing and sharing with an audience of self and others is anything from as odd and subtle as catching a glimpse of yourself in a mirror to a transformative engagement… Vivian Sobchack writes that “the moving picture is a visible representation not of activity finished or past, but of activity coming into being and being… the very moment of vision itself”.

However framed, viewing is a deeply embodied response. It also allows us, as Sharon Salzberg says of mindfulness, “to get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening”. In Prapto’s terms, film allows us to inhabit “the space between the wind”.

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Starting

I started from what I have, as Prapto used to say, which means with all my resources gathered in my life, including my familiar judge. I do not have to think any more what to do or how to start.

No preparation any more: every movement counts on the stage of life. Movement is not seen as a symbol nor is it seen as functional; it is not for getting better, it simply is.

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Somatic surveying

Amerta also works with layers. A key practice is the investigation of sensations, perceptions, feelings and memories; starting from daily life movement and then [as Prapto says] “excavating, skin by skin, layer by layer, to discover what is the story, the motive, the source”. The process whereby memory and past experience arises, or is retrieved, to meet the present, is a form of somatic survey, excavation and the processing of ‘finds’, where bodymind itself is an archaeological site.

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Reconciliation

When two things which have been apart can touch again or become friendly is a concept that recurs frequently in the field of reconciliation work. Any occurrence that releases an isolated or solidified item and reintegrates it into something wider may be seen as reconciliatory.

It feels deeply reconciling if the distance that was created out of fear or shame between ourselves and an object, an aspect, an energy or a feeling, shrinks, so that the object’s energy and feeling can touch us and be felt, be received and transformed…

I am not pointing to the content of reconciliation but more to the very act, the mechanism of release when an ongoing struggle or effort ceases. Basically the struggle is embodied and inscribed in our being and our nervous system. This determines how we see and perceive ourselves in the world we live in. Reconciliation touches an aspect of this struggle, scratches at its insularity or unties its bindings…

Reconciliation can happen in many layers of our existence.

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Navigating presences

The practices of Amerta Movement affect many aspects of living. One powerful element has to do with presence… Our quality of presence in a given environment affects how we experience it, and… in my experience these tools are uniquely developed in this work. Amerta invites us to relate with multiple realms of experience – in interaction with one another, the environment, and the subtle qualities of felt sensation. In doing so, our inheritance of ideas and beliefs is often revealed through the movement and conversation, and this invisible context becomes an element of the dance, as well. Communication amongst these realms of experience invokes what I think of as a ‘mobility in presence.’

With practice, one can navigate presences and experience consciousness of their changes, ranging from being as loud as a brightness that enjoys being seen, to as quiet as a “happy shadow”, with multiple tones along a full spectrum. Presence is not just something to have or achieve, but rather is a continual process of presencing…

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Semadi

Q: “Prapto, in thinking about your practice, or discipline, what do you actually do when you enter the space?” A: “I always do three things: flowering, channelling and semadi. [meditation] In semadi, I pay attention to everything, my toe, my foot, the air. Oh,” (gesturing up towards his moving palm) “my hand. In channelling, just letting in whatever; and in flowering, expression, emotions, feeling. But most of the time, maybe ninety percent, I am doing semadi.” Q: “Why do you do semadi so much of the time?” A: “Well, because in channelling I am afraid what might come in through me; and in flowering, I am thinking: maybe I am not pure enough.”

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Doing and being

I realise how strongly I myself am sometimes stuck in a sort of painful doing, and, although being a Westerner, how I have gotten a better sense of the being mode through the movement practice. I believe that this helps me to be open to some ‘inner place’ of the patient, to be surprised by what wants to emerge, rather than starting from any sort of pre-fixed idea or theory. This openness to being surprised gives space for the unknown, the non-habitual, which can express something more vital and alive, more the real person.

Being honest with oneself is also connected to the being mode: not playing a role, not pretending to be a certain way, to be stronger, more powerful, more confident, but also not pretending to be less strong, less confident than one is. Letting oneself be seen, one’s body and movement, without going into pre-fixed movement patterns: this has been a core theme all through my own movement experience with Prapto.

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Organism and organisation 1

I see a distinct parallel between that which Prapto calls organism and organisation and the modalities of being and doing, as described by H.S. Erlich…

In Erlich’s being mode the experience of self is one of identification, “union and fusion with the other, as well as with the world, nature, universe, etc.”. Time and space are felt to be non-linear; the subject can experience himself fully as ongoing and existing in connectedness, union and oneness with the other. Erlich sees it as a union in which the person is not melting with the other in the sense of losing themselves but more one in which the necessity to emphasise their separateness does not exist. Prapto has pointed out situations when a group started to fuse into “group soup”; this is not the same as “being together with everybody having his own body”.

In Erlich’s doing mode, self and other are experienced as separate and have a functional relationship. The central question is “who is doing what to whom?”. There is causality, directionality and chronological experience of time and space. The overall tendency is goal oriented; there is task and accomplishment. “Boundaries are vitally important in this modality...”

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Organism and organisation 2

As a volunteer, I was able to hold babies who were in need of soothing. I learned to appreciate their emotional stresses, at times being deeply affected by their pain and fear, as I tried to resonate and share communication with them. They taught me much about my own being, stirring deeply unconscious memories.

This preverbal way of speaking and of listening, this primary level of shared attention and intuitive responsiveness, seems to strongly echo something of the essence of the Amerta Movement practice. Prapto used the term ‘organism’ to differentiate the realm of sensory-motoric experience, responsive to gravity, from what he calls ‘organisation’, the term he uses to refer to the realm of ‘planning’, the province of the cognitive mind, well-known to Western cultures. He has explained that his own innate character, shaped by Javanese culture, was embedded in the way of the ‘organism’, which meant taking his understanding of the world from the materiality of nature, with its flora and fauna. This bodily-centred, instinctive and sensory realm, it seems to me, is dominant in the period of early infancy.

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Organism and organisation 3

Prapto refers to the Sensory-motory as being present in everyday life for everyone regardless of age. He talks about how “Sensory-motory is movement that has a quality of organism and organisation” or how it has the quality of natural organic processes of the body (organism) and a co-existent quality of structure or arrangement (organisation). He teaches us to reconnect to this basic level of our movement and how it “needs to be placed in or linked with awareness so that human beings existing in movement have the ability of being aware, recognising and understanding”. This is the foundation of growth.

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Hearing

Imagine a room full of people. The atmosphere is still and quiet. We are asked to sense our hearing. I do so, and slowly sense not just my own hearing, but also the hearing sense of all the other people in the room. This is not a listening to anything, not to silence, not to our breathing or to any other present sound. It is collective sensing hearing. And then I am aware of hearing hearing itself, which I would term the ‘being of hearing’, hearing as consciousness present to itself, expressing itself as hearing. This is akin to Rilke’s injunction to “learn to forget how you sang… real singing is a different kind of breath, a nothing breath… a ripple in the God”. Or expressed in the term ‘Nada Brmha’ Sanskrit words meaning ‘the world as sound’. Hearing becomes part of the ‘speaking being’, as Prapto terms it.

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Opening awareness 1

The three cultural aspects described have one thing in common: they open awareness to all sides. The attitude of waiting leads to a relaxed state of connectedness to the overall atmosphere one is in, hearing the world shifts one into the centre of a circular awareness, and respectfulness creates the space for relating in a way that gives a chance to see the whole rather than only oneself.

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Opening awareness 2

A sense of context seems to be a key to an awareness that recognises both myself and my present circumstances. This is the threshold of awareness between my inner landscape and the external landscape, as they mutually attract one another. It offers the space, literally, in terms of movement practice, to become momentarily less attached to the experience of myself as being at the centre of things, and to feel myself simply as a part of the life around me.

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Law

I had come to movement work as a meditation practice, after my interaction with my own meditation practice had become so rigid that I had pulled myself to a full stop. Indeed, at first, the movement was an attempt to counter-balance my life in the law, as an escape from, or denial of it. A suit and tie seemed like a constriction I was constantly trying to evade. Suddenly… four years after I had first met him, Prapto appeared to absorb for the first time the fact that I was a lawyer, and challenged me to apply movement to the idea of law and law to movement...

I had become used to sashaying down corridors, giving full value to my movement as I grasped door handles and moved from one area to another, crossing boundaries, contracting, then opening into each new space. I had not previously considered the law in movement terms, nor movement in terms of the law. However, I quickly saw a correlation with the development of law, at least the English legal system, with the loose framework that Prapto gave to his workshops.

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Dreamworld and Realityworld 1

“I really like the story about Siddhartha in the Lotus Sutra, when he pointed to a lotus with the movement of his hand and in that same moment the lotus blossomed. Simultaneously a monk recognised Nirvana. I interpret that happening as the Unity of the World of Nature Reality and the World of Symbol (or words) which is able to communicate embodied understanding. This is the basis of Joged Amerta, combining the World of Nature Reality and the World of Symbol, the Reality world and the Dream world in human movement, nature movement, space and time.”

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Dreamworld and Realityworld 2

Prapto often introduces his teachings with the concepts of dreamworld and realityworld. It was not so easy at first to discover what he means by that; however, over the years of movement practice with him, my personal understanding of dreamworld is that it relates to the world of art, of poetry, of dreams, of shadows and night-life, of hopes and desires and that realityworld is more connected to the essence of what reality is about, namely emptiness, as well as to the material level of existence: nature, earth, body, senses.

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Dreamworld and Realityworld 3

One of Amerta Movement’s key practices in relation to imagery is called Fact/Fiction or Reality world/Dream world.

Fiction/Dream refers to “the imagination, the symbol” while Fact/Reality refers to “the concrete”. Fact/Reality typically encompasses objective experiences while Fiction/Dream does not mean that the experiences are untrue, but instead, enters the terrain of the subjective. In general, when approaching an image, symbol or metaphor (or even an object or person) we can consider both its Facts (the function, colours, texture, orientation, location, weight, shape, etc.) as well as its Fictions (associations, meanings, metaphors, feelings, characters, etc.).

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The language of feelings

According to [Andreas] Weber, all creatures and all bodies on earth possess a language, the ‘language of feelings.’ This ‘true tongue’, as he calls this language as well, is considered to be always present and in continuous activity within beings and their communication systems. It is, therefore, the ‘true tongue’ of feelings that allows humans, animals, and plants to perceive external phenomena in a direct way, before the differentiation produced by hearing, smelling, sight, and touch start to interpret a given situation. This ‘true tongue’ doesn’t refer to an abstract code, which spoken language can be, but rather to a direct expression of our feelings through our body, through neuronal dynamics, through excitement of the circulatory system, and through mimicry and the expression of gestures.

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Babies

For some babies, movement seemed like a sensory delight. For others it felt like an expression of pain, a plea for help. Like the Amerta practice, I would say, the infants’ movement wasn’t random; but rather, in response to inner sensations and outer stimuli. Watching the babies move, I sensed the emotional communication embedded in each movement and gesture, and I felt an emotional response.

I notice the exquisite sensitivity of each finger, even each joint of each finger as they slowly and so sensitively touch the air. Also each toe explores independently. The little finger and the pointer on the right extend slowly and deliberately toward the torso. They touch the belly and rest, poised there…

The second toe extends, leading the foot to twist a little at the ankle joint; the toe touches the rolled blanket. There is a registering of this. Then the third finger moves and encounters a thin wire; there is a pause as if registering this…

I imagine that when gravity is new, air is a new medium, sensation of skin and body are heightened.

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Guiding

If I forget my own movement while I am reading the other’s movement, pulled by the desire to ‘teach’ them something, my experience is that I become too focused on a result, my perspective becomes too narrow and I exclude a respect for the unknown. Once again, I enter the realm of hoping rather than just being with what is. By clinging to some idea that may have already passed, I can fall out of presence and of being present. My impression of guiding is of an open-ended, creative conversation with the other as I move to create the conditions for a shared landscape with them in which I can stimulate the growth of their movement life and be stimulated by their responses.

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Gardening

With gentle, persistent nudging from Prapto my emphasis is gradually changing from trying to direct or change the other, to one of “gardening”, where we create the atmosphere or possibility of growth and communication together with a sense of enjoyment. The starting place of gardening is attitude. Rather than being focused on affecting change, the gardening approach trusts that the individual will find their own way, and much like a gardener our goal is to help create the conditions by which the seed can grow. The heart of this approach is communication, understanding and the blossoming of those moving together.

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Practising for, or in, nature

I mainly practise ‘Mantra Gerak’ in nature as it is easier to reflect on the natural elements in my body in order to know, process, and apply them in thought, feeling, and physically. For instance, kungkum – submersion in a spring or the source of a river while facing the sun’s position in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening, and in the middle of the night – nurtures a sense of fluidity, flowing, and clear spreading. Wind by the sea and natural fire on a mountain connects us with the spirit of life. Practising on a mountaintop helps us control anger, transform it, and apply the energy in a different way.

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Practising for, or in, society

This practice is very important, especially in Javanese culture. Practising in society builds on the previous levels in terms of one’s ability to be within a community’s social environment where individuals may differ in their backgrounds. Each person will be recognised for his or her inner and outer communication skills. In Javanese culture this practice is the final level and termed tapa ngrame; meaning that although a person lives an ordinary life, they are always in a condition of being on retreat. This practice can include:

• Practising in a village • Practising in crowded places such as a market or a street • Practising for or in a heritage site or a candi (temple) • Practising together and alone in these places.

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Critique

Prapto is sharing an attitude of critique. He is responding by questioning whether what is shown is all that there is to that person. He perceives something of what does not want to be seen or be felt. No distinction is made whether what is hidden relates to our beauty, clarity, confusion or contraction, our dissociation, dispersion and fear. Anything has the potential to offer an anticipation of what the person might become, a discernment of what is moving or standing still and what might be caught in timelessness. This all together is what positively constitutes a person and one way through which our being expresses itself. Once this constitution is touched and discovered it becomes able to move.

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Cooperation

Prapto has been talking to me for many years about an idea that has been difficult for me to grasp or to implement. Ironically however, the approach of starting from happiness and wellness rather than from illness, dysfunction, or suffering is now one of the most exciting for me. Any helping involves enabling what is wanted, what the individuals are good at and what impassions them, as a starting place, rather than starting from something that is seen to be missing or what society wants of them. This approach is more restful, playful and enjoyable for me. It is also more engaging for everyone involved. Cooperation frequently has at its base “I want you to do my idea” and revolves around “my needs” being acted on. Children on the autistic spectrum are often viewed as being “uncooperative”. But how cooperative are we being with them?

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Shifting awareness

In my movement practice, I try to work both with my sense of my body in relation to its own proportions and angles – e.g. the sense of the space between my horizontally bent arm and my chest, the way my hand curves in naturally towards my sternum – and with the sense of my body in relationship to other objects, living or inanimate, in the space, and the boundaries of the space itself. To this extent my movement practice is a celebration of the constantly shifting awareness of patterns of relationship that we have with our body and the environment around it. From these points of view I can also see law as offering both boundaries and channels for movement. When seen from this perspective, law becomes then not so much a restriction, but instead an access through the maze of life, always finding that ultimately the way in is the way out. In these constellations, the law does not bind but acts as a reference point for action.

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Interdependency

The experience of the participants in this research group was calmness, expanse and a space of awareness. I sensed the aliveness of the space and the more the space was filled with awareness, the more we began to be connected, a sharing of one field for which we all were responsible. How to stay alive in interdependency and not shrink into dependency? This could be the next task.

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Inter-independency 1

Prapto’s practice here is to find and provide inter-independency, meaning a relation that relies on but does not lie on and that can stand on its own, balancing and moving the tumbling as a dynamic in responsiveness. Balancing here becomes a stretch of personality; the inter-independency is supported by an attitude of non-identification and a curiosity towards life, seeking to support the blossoming of a person.

Inter-independency 2

More than a decade after I had begun to study with Prapto, I heard him use the term ‘inter-independence’ as an approach for communication. Instantly, it clicked, giving name to my own experience – not the lonely objecthood and power of independence, nor the stickiness of interdependence… Inter-independence is imbued with implicit dialogue, sharing space in a garden, in which all beings are conversing from their own flow of action. This is an interactivity where one dances from one’s own mobile axis, sensing oneself and the other aspects present, be they people or atmosphere.

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Intercultural Exchange

• Living prayer: Practicing the arts as a way to bring to life an attitude of bowing, offering, and praying in a context of humans, nature, and God/the Source of Life. This is from the view that an individual or community’s manner of daily life and creativity can be the living out of prayer itself. • The practice of dialogue: Beginning by a dialogue with oneself in movement to explore and develop an embodied awareness of one’s own cultural roots. Then, when the meeting of one’s cultural background and that of a person from another culture stems from a need for understanding, there can be respect for each other in dialogue. In this way, the practice of dialogue can be a gateway opening toward interculture in cultural environments. • Interculture in cultural environments: An ongoing dynamic process within a cultural group and between people of different cultures – each with their respective worldviews and practices – based on equality, mutual respect, sharing and cooperation that is also in connection with living nature and the unique tangible cultural elements and socio-cultural and spiritual dimensions of the environment in which it occurs.

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Clothing

I noticed a quality of ‘containment’ in the movement of many Javanese people, both in daily life and in dancing and performing, which I could clearly see and sense, but found I was unable to embody for myself – until I tried on the traditional Javanese dance costume. The costume itself created a kinaesthetic experience of ‘containment’ in the mid to lower body: a sarong tightly wrapped around my legs and pelvis, held in place by a stagen (sash). The costume helped me to find an experiential understanding of the feeling state of ‘containment’ inherent in the movement I was seeing around me.

Prapto also uses the term ‘clothing’ as part of his movement practice – as both a functional and symbolic element to his work. This planted seeds, in my own practice, of how one’s clothing affects one’s movement.

I began to wonder how costumes could act as ‘portals of perception’ – supporting people to find gestures and movement qualities that might otherwise be missing from their repertoire.

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Flatness

“Sometimes movement is flat – it has no nuance, no sensing, no impulse and (even if we are aware or conscious) our receiving of the world and of the other remains flat. How can we wake up our recognition in the pool of life, wake up our understanding, our awareness and our sensori-motor life so that we can feel ‘not flat’? Awareness itself is not flat. It can be likened to a piece of fabric that is not taut. If it is taut it cannot breathe. It loses its ‘living’ nature. It loses sensitivity, and that is ‘flat’.”

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Space

“I give you practice,” Prapto says, and begins to move with me. The gathering point up in my head relaxes, runs down the back as a relief, runs

through the heart and pervades the diaphragm; my heels finally touch the ground. There is space to look from, there is space to look in – a vicious circle in my head has abandoned his hiding.

I am amazed. The branches of the tree are building a gateway to the blue sky behind, which

in turn comes down to me and touches my eyes – I am calming down. Light paves and organises the confusion that had been in the shadow for so long.

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The dance of life

Now, in 2013, back at Candi Sukuh again after more than 20 years I can clearly see how Amerta and meditation helped me to find more friendliness and generosity towards myself. Meditation helped me to settle my mind, Amerta kept me from mis-using meditation to suppress emotions; both deeply changed the way I am able to relate to the world and myself. This makes it easier to look further into my patterns and understand them. Instead of judging myself for having those patterns, I am able to experiment with finding new ways of relating – be it towards myself or towards the outside world.

Staying more embodied, my mind is less hyperactive and my emotions have more ground. Though not less intense, I don’t experience them as frightening or overwhelming any more. Being more at ease with myself and the world allows my body to relax and my senses to wake up. The dance of life, with all its beauties and difficulties, becomes more spacious, light, and joyous.

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Interview with Prapto: Solo, August 2013 These are extracts from public interviews with Prapto which have been transcribed and minimally edited. All the words are spoken by Prapto.

The Art of Joged Amerta

“Joged Amerta is a practice that arises from the view of art.

Creation is never-ending and has the quality of blossoming in the garden. I put myself in creation itself as evolution, rather than creativity being one part of evolution. How can I be an involved witness, how can I bring together the qualities of actor and audience within my breathing Being-in-Creation? In fact, through being born we are already connected with the creation of the life, we are already in the pool of life, but we find it difficult to recognise what we have, to recognise our own unique potential. In our need ‘to get’, we forget ourselves. How can we understand and create from what we have already, how can we find our point of growing from what we have already? How can we grow our sense of embodied but not remain ‘flat’ even when we are embodied? As a way of approaching being embodied, I like the idea of our movement itself as a ‘costume’ or as our clothing. Clothing includes the sense of beauty, design, choice, filtering and an individual’s signature in the signs of nature. We are all just part of an environment.

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Many ideas in writing, in painting, or even in the movies give us the sense of flat. Sometimes I see everything from the awareness of flat, be it in the Reality world or the Dream world. Even the Tree of Life can be flat – in the perception of our understanding, it is flat. We cannot really feel it as alive. Sometimes movement is flat – it has no nuance, no sensing, no impulse and our receiving of the world and of the other remains flat. How can we wake up our recognition in the pool of life, wake up our understanding, our awareness and our sensorimotor life so that we can feel ‘not flat’? Awareness itself is not flat. It can be likened to a piece of fabric that is not taut. If it is taut, it cannot breathe. It loses its ‘living’ nature. It loses sensitivity, and that is ‘flat’. How can we find a position or a place where we can have safety but where we are still able to feel present within the moment-to-moment creation? How can we be alive in the changing and still riding the changing without losing ourselves? My whole approach in Joged Amerta is one of relax, of the Being Breathing, and of giving time and space for blossoming. I am only one part of the circulation. I see it as my duty in Joged Amerta, as a gardener, to wake up the potential of each person – all that they have – so that they can find their own Being-in-Creation. But maybe, in fact, Time or the Garden or the Ancestors will speak to them – not only me. I can learn from what they all speak.

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Through resonance we can wake up the potential of each person. The resonance is different for each person and for each culture and comes from what we each already have as an offering for humanity. We need to practice tuning with each other and with the situation, like instruments in an orchestra; same tuning but also different. The unknown is shared but each person’s description of the unknown is different and each person’s way/stay/process to finding the unknown is different – it depends on their particular sensibility. This really needs to be understood by all, otherwise the reaction is ‘I’ve got it! – what Prapto says is like this’ and the practice becomes a monolith. In fact, Joged Amerta is not like that, it is not for that. It is for the freedom of how to grow but can still have sharing. Sharing for me is the holy itself. Communication is the holy itself because it is like the growing for freedom. If we can have more diverse expressions or languages to speak with and to listen from, that is beautiful. Joged Amerta exists for each person to find through movement their own Being-in-Creation in the pool of life and sharing what they have, like sharing garden movement. Oh ah hum rahayu.”

(Transcribed and adapted from two public interviews with Prapto by Sandra Reeve, Solo 2013.)

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Interview with Prapto: Sound, voice, words, sentences “I think that communication already exists in this life, whether we are aware of it or not. Actually, it is a bit strange when someone says, ‘I cannot communicate’ even though by those very words they are already communicating. I prefer to feel that we are in the life of the world of communication and that we are in creative evolution to create new ways, new symbols, or new sentences within that world of communication. Decades ago, I tried to explore sound becoming voice, becoming words, and becoming sentences. In the beginning, it was just sounds. As time passed, the sounds became an expression. Then, from that expression, I really felt a desire to communicate, to convey something, to create words. From there, a word was born though I could not understand its meaning. But also a word was born that I could understand its meaning. What is interesting in expressing sound, voice, words, sentences is being able to bring a word into presence as a fact of the existence of the word. This word feels as if it is a form in my existence, in the existence of my body, mind, heart, intention, and seed. Within that process there was an awareness of myself as a word; my presence can create words and arrange words. I am in an evolution creating words. I am in the atmosphere of story.

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But, at the same time, I have an awareness of the ability to create my own story. I am not just in the story of others, or of society, of my family or of the ancestors. But I am also not nullifying them. They still exist in my life story. And to hold both is not so easy. Here lies the existence of a polemic: entering into the world without words and into the world with words. A world without words is still in communication, but there are no words. An example of the world without words is the main stupa at the temple of Borobudur which has neither bas-relief sculptures, nor a statue of the Buddha. It is empty. But, we can see that the stupa has given birth to many books from the world with words – from storybooks to holy books. I really like the story about Siddhartha in the Lotus Sutra, when he pointed to a lotus with his hand and in that same moment the lotus blossomed. Simultaneously a monk understood and recognised Nirvana. I interpret that happening as the Unity of the World of Nature Reality and the World of Symbol (or words), which is able to communicate embodied understanding. The blossoming of a lotus also gives meaning to beauty in life – enlightenment. Both the blossoming of a flower and the awareness of being in the bud free up the illusion of a boundary between the inner world and the outer world, between space inside and space outside.

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I put this as a symbol of the idea of my awareness being in relaxed, empty axis, in empty space within the life story that comes into existence by designing signature in sign nature. This is the basis of Joged Amerta, combining the World of Nature Reality and the World of Symbol, the Reality world and the Dream world in human movement, nature movement, space and time. Oh ah hum rahayu.”

(Interview material recorded and translated by Diane Butler, Bali 2014)

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EMBODIED LIVES – Contents and Authors

The following are short descriptions of the chapters in Embodied Lives by the contributors to the book. Presence Beate Stühm writes about movement from inside the experience, from moment to moment. She reflects on awareness, creativity and acceptance - on a journey of growth. Amerta movement and archaeology: excavation without digging Keith Miller looks at themes like time, place, layers, memory and the Amerta techniques ‘living measurement’, ‘finding position and point of view’ and ‘Circle, Oval and Square’, in exploring links between movement and archaeology. Cultural Aspects of the Movement Work Christina Stelzer, rather than talking about her own work, highlights and explores three aspects of the Javanese culture that she sees as central to Amerta Movement: waiting, hearing the world and respect. Amerta and Tibetan Buddhism: Beyond the Cushion Monika Förster describes ‘hitting yourself with your mind’, ‘mind as an ally’, ‘bowing towards daily life’, ‘being seen’, ‘giving awareness without creating stagnation’... and other practices.

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The Eye of the Hand: Embodied Filmmaking as Movement Practice Steve Hopkins explores movement practice on film through the lens of his work with 3m (meditation, movement and movie) groups in movement workshops, and working with Prapto on film. A Dog Practising ‘Talking Body’ José Mulder van de Graaf explores the concept of a ‘language of feelings’, that enables us to understand and to express, even to enhance knowledge in another way… to ‘comprehend’ the space, to ‘acknowledge’ nature while it constantly changes, and, last not least, to recognise our self. Make Less the Hoping Sandra Reeve shows how Prapto’s teaching about the mudras associated with the four sides of Borobudur temple can be applied in daily life and ritual and then looks at how movement guiding works. Touching Forgotten Realities: A practice of detecting the happening Bettina Mainz investigates what she describes as the forces of critique, freedom and reconciliation in her life as a movement teacher and dancer. The Echo of Life: Developing Resonance Through Amerta Movement Daniela Coronelli shows how the practice of Amerta Movement has helped her to develop her profession as a Shiatsu and Seiki practitioner and teacher, utilising direct embodied experience of Resonance and Mindfulness, in her contact with clients and students.

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I Always Do Three Things Shantam Zohar explains and discusses the Amerta practices of flowering, channeling and semadi [meditation]. A Presencing Dial Margit Galanter says presence is a basis, filter and medium for how we are in a situation, interacting with one another, the environment and our felt senses. This mobility in presence can be gauged on a dial - ranging from 'as loud as brightness that enjoys being seen' to 'as quiet as a happy shadow'. Amerta Movement and Somatic Costume: Sourcing the Ecological Image Sally Dean describes how Prapto’s literal, imaginal and metaphorical use of the terms 'costume' and clothing' have informed her ongoing research into using 'somatic costumes' in performance. Crystallization-performance: a new expression in its own right Lise Lavelle looks at the crystallizations offered in Amerta movement. “The story... was already there locked up in my muscles and in the Valley, waiting to be found... it is not I who creates, rather something or someone does it for me. I am just a page in a big book. I have experienced that... there are structures and whole dance dramas tied up deep inside our bodies.” ‘Mantra Gerak’ / Movement Mantra Agus Bima Prayitna explains the practice of embodying movement and sound in oneself, art, culture, nature, society and the mystical.

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Being and Doing in the Wild Garden: Movement psychotherapy in an East German psychosomatic hospital Susanne Tümpel picks the themes of Oneness and Separateness, Organism and Organization in exploring the application of Amerta Movement in her individual and group psychotherapy work. The Musical Portal Inspired by Prapto’s injunction “you do not yet know your hearing has language” Tim Jones mixes storytelling with an inquiry into conversation, relationship, the nature of sound and song worlds, finishing with a ‘text sound composition’ for the reader to explore. Near the Unknown Franca Fubini explores Prapto's ideas of Dreamworld and Realityworld and her application of Amerta Movement to a practice known as Social Dreaming. ‘Going out of the situation’ and ‘Stop, don’t follow that, walk!’: Two movement themes that support my work with children Regula Nell presents movement strategies she practises as a movement teacher, Feldenkrais practitioner and psychomotor-therapist. Amerta Movement and Autism: Therapy, Communication, Collaboration and Art Sean Williams, a Developmental and Play Therapist, and Educator, describes how Prapto opened a door to a totally new understanding of his clients and helped him see how working with people on the spectrum is an act of collaborative communication – “creating something together that enriches all of our lives.”

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Family: The Field of Blossoming Una Nicholson learnt from Prapto’s teaching that family is a dynamic and creative vessel. Building on his idea of the family as a dynamic generator, a source of regeneration and a place to practise the art of everyday living and being, she describes how adopting an ‘attitude of family’ can reveal a field in which we are deeply connected and where things get done easily and collaboratively, where the individual and ‘the whole family’ can flourish. The Infant’s Language Katya Bloom describes her interest in the residual effects of our earliest pre-verbal experiences on later development. “Conferring with infants” in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, she describes how we can disrupt long-installed habits through movement, develop greater empathy and common ground with others, and recognize ourselves as part of the ‘garden’ of all life. “Find Your Position”: An Embodied Approach to Movement and Daily Life Susan Bauer explores Prapto’s theme of ‘finding your position’, a means of centering within oneself through embodied presence that opens us to the creative energies of life. She further highlights links between his practice and that of both Authentic Movement and her own form called ‘Moving-from-Within’. Body Body: A movement practitioner’s journey with Amerta Movement Helen Poynor explores how the dual lineage of Prapto’s and Anna Halprin’s approaches to movement relate to her own practice. Themes include: non-stylised movement, moving in the environment, working with feelings and the role of the mind.

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Ever-speaking being Michael Dick uses the lenses of ‘permeability’ and ‘presence’ (two fundamental human potentials) as an actor trainer - which he calls developing the human instrument for performing arts. Here he offers a practice session as a case study example. Moving in the Law Simon Slidders, a lawyer, investigates interconnections between Amerta movement practice and the restrictions, boundaries, traditions, flexibility, ambiguities, structures and transcendence of the law and the legal system. The Breathing Eye: a journey towards visual art in an embodied space Andrea Morein illustrates how the movement practice has laid the ground for her somatic and contemplative art practice and has informed her work as a visual artist. Joy: The stony way Anita Lüdke, an architect and freelance artist, shows how she incorporates into her teaching and her daily life something she discovered in Amerta Movement and which has gained great importance for her: she calls it ‘Space of Being’. Re-membering Butterfly Beach Melinda Buckwalter describes ‘stopping’, ‘re-membering’, ‘witnessing’, ‘being with', ‘blossoming’ and other practices learnt from Amerta Movement.

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I will trace the constellation of my stars with my fingers Ellin Krinsly starts with Prapto’s use of metaphor and then looks at her framework of practice and the constellation of intercultural and ritual performances in her life. Awakening Art and Dharma Nature Time: Participatory Approaches to Interculture in Cultural Environments Diane Butler explains how exchanges with Sharing Movement colleagues and the practice of dialogue in Amerta Movement nurtured her approach in her own workshop series and the public programs of International Foundation for Dharma Nature Time.

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